Thursday, December 23, 2010

EXTRA: Oh, be quiet!

EMANUEL: He's in!

On the day before Christmas, Rahm Emanuel got the present of learning from the Board of Election Commissioners that he is an official candidate for mayor of Chicago in next year’s elections. Just a few hours later, opponent James Meeks made it known to the board that he was out.

Yet Meeks, the minister who presides over a significant South Side congregation and is following the Jason Plummer School of Politics when it comes to disclosing his income, seems to think he still has a say-so in terms of who replaces Richard M. Daley.

MEEKS, ALSO A state senator from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs, said he isn’t endorsing anyone. Yet he expects all the other African-American candidates to submit to a caucus of clergy, political people and black residents that will pick a single black candidate to run against Emanuel, Gery Chico, Miguel del Valle and all the other mayoral hopefuls.

Excuse me, but didn’t we just go through a process by which African-American religious and political people tried to anoint someone from among their ranks as the official black candidate for the Chicago mayoral campaign?

That process already rejected Meeks, and now that it seems his appeal is limited solely to the African-American population of the South Side, he has the nerve to think everybody has to submit to him so he can “pick” the new mayor?

With that kind of talk, Meeks is more delusional than those Chicago Cubs fans who think their favorite ballclub is a contender every season. This talk is more ridiculous than his statements that only black people should be considered as “minorities” when it comes to government hiring and contracts.

I HOPE REP. Danny Davis, D-Ill. (the mayoral hopeful who WAS chosen as the preferred black candidate) and former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun stick by their guns and don’t drop out. Heck, I hope that William “Dock” Walls stands firm and tells the reverend from Roseland where to shove it.

The sad aspect about this whole issue is that there is legitimacy to the idea of increased African-American political empowerment. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with wanting to work toward electing a black person as mayor of Chicago.

MEEKS: He's out!

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It’s just too bad that the political people who were working toward this goal seem too inept when it comes to trying to build up a coalition of support behind a single candidate.

If the Chicago mayoral election of Feb. 22 turns into a runoff election on April 5 between Emanuel and former Chicago Public Schools executive Gery Chico, I’m sure that Meeks will claim some sort of racial wrongdoing has taken place. It’s just too bad that his first act in terms of trying to figure out why black candidates didn’t do better wasn’t to look in the mirror.

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in places like Calumet City, Ill., and Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.